Can you taste the Black Friday deals turkey yet? (Happy Thanksgiving, by the way, to those celebrating) Can you smell those sweet, sweet discounts wafting through the cracks in your screen that tell you, yes, it is> time to buy a new gaming monitor, and maybe find a deal on a new graphics card, CPU, SSD and literally every other PC component under the sun? Yes, you say? Me too! And have I got the best PC gaming deals for you this fine Black Friday eve.

For I, your trusted deals herald, have been beavering away this past week (month, year, it seems so long ago) to bring you the best Black Friday deals the internet has to offer. You’ll find everything here for building a new PC, including all the best Black Friday graphics card deals, monitor deals, SSD deals, gaming laptop deals, CPU deals, headset deals and please send help because I actually can’t stop saying the word ‘deals’ (DEALS).

(more…)

It’s the big day, people, it’s… oh no, it’s only Thursday, not Black Friday proper yet. And yet! The deals bell, I hear it ringing so clearly! Oh well, what’s a deals herald to do, eh, in the face of such stonking and relentless discounts? Bring you a list of the bestest best gaming headset deals, of course! And, unlike other component deals this Black Friday, there are actually some pretty good ones to be found in our favourite audio department. If you’ve been looking to get one of today’s [cms-block]s on the cheap, now is the time to act. Here are all the best Black Friday headset deals into one, easy, digestible list.

(more…)

Assassin s Creed Odyssey is a proper action-RPG, complete with romance opportunities, conversation trees, branching storylines, and bales of soft material to leap into from improbable heights. While well-written and expansive, much of the story s appeal can be laid at the feet of its charismatic leads. Greek actors Michael Antonakos and Melissanthi Mahut provide the voices and performance capture for Alexios and Kassandra, bringing the characters to life with unexpected nuance (as previously chronicled by some handsome, overworked soul). As a game developer myself, my only question after sinking dozens of hours into it is: how. How do the protagonists remain distinct, internally cohesive, and roughly equivalent, across thousands of lines of the same script?

So I asked Antonakos and Mahut themselves, who taught me about Ubisoft s craft in producing games on a massive scale, and the methods the actors used to make each hero their own.

(more…)

It feels like a bit of a cheat to mention this game.ME? Talk about Super Hexagon, when I am so horrendously bad at it? My legendary attempts of which should be filmed and aired on TV in a Takeshi s Castle-like series of cringe and pain!?

(more…)

Steam’s Autumn Sale has begun, and slashed prices litter the ground like so many soggy fallen leaves. It’s sales season from now until the middle of January, and our wallets are under siege. RPS is here to help pick out the best of the bunch, and without leaving your bank account completely> pillaged. You can find the official list of games on sale here, ranked by how well they’re selling. There’ll be more picks to come later, but for now, I’ve got a handful of personal recommendations for you all below, plus some tips on where to look outside of Steam.

(more…)

The next expansion for Europa Universalis 4 is taking the grand strategy game into a particularly high-stakes part of history. Golden Century is set to expand on the naval aspect of the game, building on the Spanish Reconquista and a broad focus on the Iberian peninsula. Where there’s mountains of stolen Aztec gold, there’s opportunity, and the chance to tussle with or even play as entire pirate nations. You’ve got until December 11th to whittle your perfect peg-leg or pick out the perfect plumage for your Spanish helm. The announcement trailer shines below.

(more…)

I will always be a sucker for a stylish, combo-heavy platform brawler, and Bladed Fury is reminding me pleasantly of Vanillaware’s Muramasa on the Wii and Vita. Set in ancient mythological China, a princess attempts to clear her name against accusations of murder by stabbing a lot of people, apparently. In amongst its lushly drawn human villains there’s demons and skellingtons to be battered, or apparently shot with an ancient Chinese anti-tank cannon. NEXT Studio’s hack n’ slasher is due out next month on December 18th – take a peek at the very swish trailer below.

(more…)

Black Friday monitor deals have been pretty scarce over in the US these past couple of days, but luckily most retailers seem to have got their act together now, meaning more sweet Black Friday discounts for all involved. Now freshly updated with more deals than ever, here are all the bestest best Black Friday deals on today’s bestest [cms-block]s.

(more…)

Whether you appreciated its fresh approach or loathed the concepts behind The Bard’s Tale 4, it’s hard to deny that the revival of the ancient RPG series needed a few more months in the oven. Today’s big ol’ patch, which developers inXile are calling the Second Sight Update, smooths over some of the bigger cracks in its pseudo-old-school facade. For the good of everyone, you can now save the game anywhere, but those wanting a more uncompromising retro experience can enable grid-based movement and even recruit the original six pre-made Bard’s Tale heroes.

(more…)

For England, James? No, for XP. 2000 XP, to be precise. That s how much Sean Bean s life is worth in the first of Hitman 2 s Elusive Targets. These are timed contracts that give you one shot at killing a special guest character – in this case, everyone s favourite Yorkshire thespian (okay, it s a toss up between Bean and fellow GoldenEye alumni Judi Dench).

Bean, of course, is famous for dying horribly in every film and show he s in (who could forget when Black Beauty kicked his face clean off?) and so it s a great opportunity to join the ever-growing club of Bean s executioners. The one and done approach makes it nerve wracking to document these runs in video form, but here s how I got on (more…)